The Kraft Nabisco Championship is played annually at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, Calif. Mission Hills Country Club is northwest of Indio, in the Coachella Valley region that also includes well-known golf cities such as Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Indian Wells and La Quinta. Indio is often referred to as the lowest point in the area, and, in fact, the city is slightly below sea level.
Longtime members of Mission Hills Country Club, and LPGA veterans who've played many times in the Kraft Nabisco Championship, recognized over time that putted balls tended to break toward Indio. So knowing where Indio is in relation to the green you are putting at Mission Hills can provide valuable insight into how any given putt might break.
What causes the Indio effect - why do many putts at Mission Hills break toward Indio? For the same reason all putts that break do so in a given direction: because of the contours of the greens. Indio itself has nothing to do with it. There is no "pull" coming from Indio; there is nothing magical or mystical about it. Any putt at Mission Hills (or any other area course) that breaks toward Indio does so because of the contours of the putting surface.
But as we said, longtime players of Mission Hills noticed that many of those breaks tend to go in the direction of Indio, so the "Indio effect" term was born.
